


pale blue eyes

by harringtonsgrande



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Dad Steve, Future Fic, Heavy Angst, M/M, im so sorry, probably not going to end happy :(, this shit is BIG sad
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-21
Updated: 2018-07-21
Packaged: 2019-06-13 21:20:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,178
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15373569
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/harringtonsgrande/pseuds/harringtonsgrande
Summary: Billy and Steve break up in high school and Billy makes an unexpected visit years later.inspired by the song: Pale Blue Eyes by The Velvet Underground (aka Billy Hargrove’s Song)





	pale blue eyes

**Author's Note:**

> ya’ll. I’m sorry. this shit mad sad.  
> I didn’t plan on writing this it just randomly popped up in my head. hope you don’t hate this since it was really fast? just a random little concoction. 
> 
> steve and billy: A playlist   
> https://open.spotify.com/user/nicolepoophead/playlist/0NUpvhTncplxx5VWfS4yTn?si=P8WuSFaKSbWxjHBrZ1u8KA

There’s an eeriness in the air. The bright moon is out and the sky is shining a dark blue over Hawkins. 

Billy hasn’t been here in years.

He wonders if anyone even remembers him. When his old man kicked it one last time and croaked from a heart attack, Billy dropped out of high school. Sure, he had his senior year left but Billy was never good at the book worm shit anyways. Didn’t care what happened to his bum-fuck GPA. No matter what happened to him—

He was free.

Free of judgement and abuse and slurs and being told he couldn’t be who the fuck he was. Getting smacked around for fooling around late nights with Harrington.

Harrington.

He wonders how he’s doing now.

Hasn’t spoken to him in years. No post card. No letter. No responses.

Billy replays the last memory of them in his head every time Steve crosses his mind. Remembers how Steve walked away. How Billy walked away. Left him for good.

“Steve. I’m done with this place. Don’t you get it? He’s dead. Gone forever. Out of my fuckin’ life. Let’s go-“

“Bill, you still have a year left. Why not just finish it?”

“–Because FUCK this place, Steve. What the fuck am I gonna do wastin’ a year with bullshit classes I won’t even pass when I could start over in California already?”

A silence brewed for a moment. Steve leaning against the kitchen counter in his own home with his arms crossed, lips pursed as he pondered the idea, feet mindlessly dragging along the tile pattern on the floor before Billy spoke the words that made him freeze up like an ice cube.

“Come with me.”

“Wh-what?” Steve practically choked on air. 

“Come with me.” Billy repeated himself and stood in front of Steve. Hands holding his lover’s own and looking deep into his brown doe’d eyes. Billy was a sucker for those things. “Come to the beach. Come to the sunny sky where it’s not cold and fuckin’ ugly all the time. We can get our own place. I have some money saved and we can stay at my friends apartment till we find somethin’ more to our liking and we can go sight seeing and I can show you all my favorite spots—“

“I. Billy... I just...” Steve’s hand slowly dropped from Billy’s.

No. 

no no no no—

Billy could already hear the unfortunate switch in Steve’s voice. The tone when a child wants something at the grocery store but the parent knows they’re not going to put it in the cart. The voice that’s sitting behind a teacher’s desk trying to let their student gently know there’s no way they can pick up a low grade. And the voice that Steve Harrington; who Billy genuinely believed he was falling in love with, was using to let Billy down. To let him go. To let him know he wasn’t going with him.

Steve continued, his head hanging and eyes fixating on that tile floor again with his voice soft and a little stuttered, “I. I can’t just leave? What would my parents think? I have a job. I still have to go to community college and I already signed up for classes, I can’t just pack up-“

“There’s ice cream parlors in Cali, scoops.” Billy laughed a little weakly, “there’s community colleges. Lots of em’. Pretty universities too. We can start over—“

“You can start over Billy.” Steve finally looked up at his partner, eyes wide, hair a little crazy and voice finally stern. “I, it’s just not for me okay? I can’t just go somewhere new and totally abandon my life.”

Billy walked slowly backwards from his boyfriend, brows furrowed and arms crossing over his chest as he spoke, offended, “what. you don’t want me?”

“Bill...” Steve moved from the counter and stepped closer, only for Billy to move back and Steve sigh out in response, “it’s not that I don’t want you, okay? it’s just. I don’t know. maybe this is a good thing. you leaving and getting what you deserve.”

“The fuck is that suppose to mean?” 

“Like... I don’t know.” Steve always sounded uncertain when he had to voice his opinions. “Me and you. Maybe it’s a good thing it ends, yeah? You’re you and I’m... me. we had a good thing going and now we have to grow up if you really wanna go.”

“Good thing goin’..? What the hell are you talking about Harrington?” 

Billy felt like he was going crazy. Why the fuck was Steve talking like this. Like they didn’t matter, that they were just a thing without a proper title or that they didn’t say “I love you” to eachother every other day. 

What the fuck.

“Like.” Steve groaned, his hands flying upward to brush and pull at his own hair. “Obviously, one day we were gonna have to close this chapter. Go to college, get married to some ladies, have wives, have kids. I mean. This was just something passing.. Wasn’t this what it was?”

Steve looked up at billy with a question on his face.

Billy wanted to throw the fuck up. 

This wasn’t Steve. 

This wasn’t the guy he ran into at a party after his dad beat the shit out of him and made him feel something he hasn’t felt in years.

Okay.

This wasn’t the guy who took him out to look at stars and the moon like a couple of heterosexuals and talk about the future and shit, what they wanted in life.

This wasn’t the guy who defended him against the team when they talked poorly about him. When they made jokes about how he wore the same clothes over and over and how he was really late to practice sometimes or how he lagged in games occasionally because of bruises and marks and cuts from days before.

This wasn’t the guy who told him, “I think it looks good” when his dad shaved his head miserably and left choppy bald patches after thinking his hairstyle ‘made him look like a girl’.

–and this wasn’t the guy who held his face behind the bleachers after a football game and told him, “I like you, I really fuckin’ like you” and kissed him like he meant it.

The Steve he knew gave it to him good in Steve’s kind size bed, told him he loved him, spooned the shit out of him like some sappy romantic novel after and said, “I got you, always.”

A thick tension filled Steve’s kitchen.

Billy refused to cry in front of Steve, let alone let him know he hurt him too fuckin’ bad this time. 

Worse than a punch to the face.

Billy erupted though, his head leaving the floor with eyes stinging tears back and his vision unfortunately blurry as he tried to power through it. His hands searching for any type of thing to grab suddenly. He wanted Steve to feel what he was feeling.  
The pain that was pumping out of his chest and into his heart. The feeling of being made a joke out of and getting your feelings thrown back in your face. 

A plate. 

He didn’t aim for Steve, but he did want to make a point.

He grabbed the plate and threw it hard against the wall.

The fine china smashing into pieces along Steve’s tile– who was currently covering his head and eyes popping out of his skull, face full of bewilderment and anger, “BILLY, WHAT THE FUCK—“

“I came out FOR YOU, you stupid fuckin’ asshole– I got my ass beat for YOU, I risked everything for YOU–“

Steve was frozen again. 

“I was vulnerable to you. I told you fuckin’ everything, I told you the good and bad shit.” He pacing now. Hands running up in his hair that he desperately wanted to tear out while his chest heaved. Not even a panic attack could storm out of him properly.

“-I love you.” was the last thing that left the blonde boy’s mouth. Body tense and fists clenched as he stared up at what he thought, was the love of his life.

Key word, thought. 

“But clearly. I was wrong, huh, pretty boy?”

Billy didn’t look back. He didn’t turn to get one last glance at a eyes watering Steve who sunk to the kitchen floor to cry. He didn’t pick up the glass he shattered along the floor and didn’t hesitate to slam the finely detailed front door behind him. 

He didn’t owe Steve Harrington shit.

But here he was, years later, back. 

Billy’s style hasn’t changed much.

He still rocked a black leather jacket and white button up. His mother’s necklace dangling from his neck and iconic tight blue pants to match. Black boots shiny and clean on his feet. 

He did change his hairstyle though. He left it a little bit long on the top of his head but completely shaved the sides now. 

He was sharing an apartment with a friend named Julio he met at a gay club in California. Ended up getting a job as a dancer there and made a pretty good amount every work night since he was one of the best in the club, not to mention it was on the more upscale part of town.

He’d rehearse this moment ever since he realized he would be paying Steve a visit.

The trip wasn’t dedicated to the ex’s reunion since it was mostly to check up on Maxine and see how she was carrying on.

There was always multiple different scenarios Billy planned out when imagining this moment.

Maybe he’d yell again, tell Steve he was still a piece of shit. Flaunt how he still looked good and ramble about his amazing pay and life in California.

–Or, he’d be cordial. Strut really pretty around Steve’s new home and flick his tongue like he used to. Play the charming card and get Steve all riled up and flustered like he knew he could and then leave him high and dry. Aching and drooling with a hard on, begging for Billy to come back. But he wouldn’t. Wouldn’t even think about it.

Then there was a realistic option. Be honest. Tell Steve about his life, explain how and what he was doing. Then tell him how he really felt– feels. How he wasn’t been able to properly move on. How he fucks and leaves the boys in California without a word or hesitation. How he isn’t able to fully trust anyone anymore like he did with Steve. How he truly believes he lost every genuine romantic bone in his body. How no one gives him those butterflies like Steve does. How he misses him. How he’s still so fuckin’ in love with him. And how he’s an idiot for it.

So when Billy approaches the address Max gave him, he’s a little confused. 

Billy doesn’t walk up to a private mansion like Steve’s house used to be. It’s not glamorous and have a big parking space and front lawn. 

In fact, it’s a small home with one car space already filled with what Billy assumes is Steve’s new car?

A soccer mom van. Billy almost laughs. How fitting. Steve probably still takes max and her friends out like he used to, he figures.

So, instead he parks his blue Camaro on the street and walks up the steps to his past. A yellow light is radiating through the windows and Billy assumes Steve’s home, the sight kind of looking like someone is watching TV in the living room.

An ugly feeling crawls up his body. Maybe Steve isn’t home. Maybe, it’s his new wife. His new girlfriend. His new fucking whatever playing house wife and baking her husband pies and walking around like some broad with an apron. 

His fists are clenching at his side and he swallows the heavy lump in his throat. 

You can do this, you can do this. 

He tells himself over and over mentally. 

He rings the doorbell.

A faint “Hold on!” Is shouted from the inside of the home and Billy feels his body tense again. God, he’s about to drop the whole idea all together and throw up in the car. 

Seconds pass.

He could turn now. Leave like none of this ever happened and go back to his home in California. Keep living in peace and never face this. 

Just, leave.

So Billy turns around, his feet pattering against the cement as he walks for his car’s direction until a soft, but hopeful,

“.... Billy?” breaks free.

He can’t keep walking. He fucking can’t. 

That voice cuts through him like a blade.

Billy Hargrove turns around to find a beautiful, a little tired looking, but beautiful Steve Harrington looking at him.

But his eyes quickly drop to what’s sitting on Steve’s hip, what he’s carrying actually— a toddler he assumes. A baby who’s sucking on a white bottle, babbling mindlessly at Billy.

Billy breathes out loud, like he hasn’t in years, “.. Hey.”


End file.
